Entrenched
in 18th-century democratic structures and practices, the United States
has missed out on many advances in how to run fair elections and give
people the tools to hold their government accountable. The Florida
election debacle in 2000 was just the tip of an iceberg of problems
that remains largely unexamined.

But there are
cracks of light that expose new approaches. Take our work on upgrading
voting methods. On May 8, some 3,500 Utah Republicans gathered for
their state convention and used instant runoff voting (IRV) to nominate
candidates for governor (reducing a wide-open field of eight candidates
to two who will advance to a primary) and for Congress and to elect
party officers. IRV is a significant improvement over traditional
voting methods in accommodating voter choice and ensuring majority
rule.

The next week, on May 15, voters in
Amarillo, Texas, elected their school board for the third time with
cumulative voting. Cumulative voting is a full representation system
that provides all substantial groups of voters with equal access to
elect candidates of their choosing rather than only representing the
largest group of voters. Gaining general acceptance in Amarillo since
its adoption in 1999 to settle a voting rights case, cumulative voting
has had an immediate impact on fair representation. A candidate of
color has been elected in each of the three cumulative voting
elections; before its adoption, no candidate of color had been elected
since the 1970s.

In
today's update, we have
more information about these elections, feature high-profile editorial
commentary suggesting that the best way to tackle political
gerrymandering is full representation and summarize recent additions to
our website.

I'm also pleased to welcome David
Moon to the Center. A former legal intern who graduates this month from
the Washington College of Law, David heads up our outreach about full
representation voting methods – see http://archive.fairvote.org/about_us/moon.htm David already has appeared on CNN this month to discuss voting -- read the transcript at http://archive.fairvote.org/articles/cnn.htmWe're also looking forward to another energetic crew of seven interns
from around the nations coming to work with us this summer to advance
democracy. They will join our dedicated program associates Stephanie
Collier, Danielle Goodreau, Andrew Kirshenbaum and Chris Martin. Out in
the field, Steven Hill, Caleb Kleppner, Dan Johnson-Weinberger and
Terry Bouricius continue to represent CVD effectively in California,
Illinois and Vermont.

##

IRV PLAYS MAJOR ROLE IN UTAH / GAINS SUPPORT

On
May 8, 2004, the Utah Republican Party held a convention with 3,500
delegates charged with selecting their party's nominees for the often
hotly contested offices of Governor, Attorney General and numerous US
Congressional seats as well as electing party officers. To ensure
majority support for their nominees and save on election time and
expense, the Utah Republicans have been using instant runoff voting
(IRV) at state conventions since 2001. Utah Republicans also use IRV at
several county conventions.

Under the party's
rules, a candidate can be nominated for an office at the convention
with 60% support; if no candidate reaches that threshold, the top two
face off to a primary. IRV is used to determine if there is a
super-majority winner and, if not, which two candidates advance to the
primary. Before adoption of IRV, there were repeated rounds of
in-person voting, which often took many hours and led to final votes
occurring with far fewer delegates than earlier in the day. Because IRV
has meant more people participate in the decisive vote, it's become
very popular with delegates. (Note: If you're a member of an
organization that might experience this problem, don't hesitate to
contact us for information about IRV.)

This
year's wide-open gubernatorial race provided a powerful demonstration
of how IRV works. No candidate won even 30% of first choices, and as
the field of eight was reduced to two, it was clear that supporters of
different candidates with different bases of support had coherently
ranked their choices. For instance, when House Speaker Marty Stephens
was defeated, only 13 of his 465 ballots went to the incumbent governor
Olene Walker, who is not his political ally. When Walker later was
defeated (Walker had become governor after being elected as lieutenant
governor), most of her votes went to Nolan Karras, propelling him into
the final two with Jon Hunstman.

In
addition to the governor's race, IRV was used this year to nominate
candidates for U.S. Congress, attorney general, national committeeman
and national committee woman. Nancy Lord, the new national
committeewoman for Utah, has been an effective voice for using IRV at
these conventions and has expressed interest in discussing its value
with Republicans around the country.

The
Republicans' experience with IRV at the convention drew the attention
of the Provo Daily Herald. On May 16, the Herald came out in favor of
adopting IRV for general elections in Utah, concluding, "If Utah wants
to boost public participation and make the electoral process work
better, it should embrace instant runoffs." See http://archive.fairvote.org/editorials/herald.htm

To
track such news and discuss strategic questions, join the national IRV
listserv, which is moderated and limited to no more than two messages a
day. You can review the archives and/or sign up at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/instantrunoff

##

CUMULATIVE VOTING AT WORK: AMARILLO, TEXAS AND CORPORATE BOARDS

On
May 15, the Amarillo Independent School District -- a jurisdiction with
some 160,000 people -- elected its school board for the third time with
cumulative voting, a non-winner-take-all method of full representation.
In each of these three cumulative voting elections, at least one
candidate of color has been elected. The current board has African
American and Latino representation, after having had only elected white
representatives for some two decades under the winner-take-all system
used before 2000. Voter turnout has increased, although remains quite
low; in an encouraging sign, rates of voter error were extremely low
this year.

With cumulative voting, candidates
run for more than one seat – as done in several state legislatures and
in many localities. Voters have the same number of votes as seats, and
can choose to allocate them however they want – including having the
right to give more than one vote to one candidate. When adopting
cumulative voting, a jurisdiction is expanding electoral options for
its citizens. It is one of a family of voting methods that we call
"full representation" because they allow more voters to elect someone
to speak for them and represent their interests.

Amarillo's
adoption of cumulative voting was the result of litigation brought by
the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), working
with the local branches of the League of United Latin American Citizens
(LULAC) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP). The parties in the case agreed to settle the case with
the adoption of cumulative voting in 1999.

Cumulative
voting is now used by at least 40 school districts and 14 city councils
across the state of Texas. All these districts adopted cumulative
voting during the 1990s, and burgeoning support for cumulative voting
led then-governor George W. Bush to sign into law a 1995 bill
explicitly allowing cumulative voting to be used in school board
elections.

Cumulative voting allows political
minorities to gain representation by focusing their voting strength.
For example, the first African Americans were elected to the Atlanta,
TX independent school district (ISD) school board largely as a result
of African American voters' giving all their votes to these candidates.
Prior to the adoption of cumulative voting, many districts like Atlanta
ISD had never had a non-Anglo elected to the school board, even though
African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities were a substantial
part of the population--Atlanta, for example, is 20% African
American.

Cumulative voting also has a long
history in shareholder elections for corporate boards. Many major
corporations use cumulative voting for board elections, and many
corporate governance reformers back it. Just this spring it was just
required of all Russian corporations, while this month, national union
leaders backed cumulative voting for Entergy Corporation, arguing it
"would bring an independent perspective to the corporation." For more
on the Entergy resolution, seehttp://www.reformentergynow.orghttp://archive.fairvote.org/press/entergy.htm

##

HIGHLIGHTS OF RECENT WEB POSTINGS

*
Register to vote! Joining a growing number of non-profits seeking to
boost voter participation, we've set up a portal with information on
how to vote and how to register to vote on-line, in person or by mail.
See http://archive.fairvote.org/turnout/infocenter.htm

*
States and the new Election Assistance Commission need more funds to
help states implement the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) fairly and
fully. CVD has joined many groups in a letter calling for funds – see
pdf file at http://archive.fairvote.org/administration/lccr.pdf

*
The world's largest democracy, India, elected its parliament this
month, instituting a new electronic voting system nationwide. Voters
surprised the pundits, with the Congress party upsetting the ruling
coalition. As part of CVD's regularly updated collection of articles
about full representation around the world (see http://archive.fairvote.org/pr/global/country.htm),
we've posted a new commentary from the Calcutta Times calling for full
representation to replace India's current winner-take-all elections: http://archive.fairvote.org/pr/global/indiasuggestions.htm

*
The University of California-Davis is one of more than 20 colleges and
universities that now use fair election methods for student elections.
It elects its student council by the choice voting method of full
representation. Student advocates recently provide an analysis of the
most recent choice voting elections at: http://www.ucdgreens.org/cva/addendum.pdf

##

FEATURED COMMENTARY: CVD ON GERRYMANDERING

In
the wake of last month's Supreme Court ruling in Vieth v. Jubilirer
upholding political gerrymandering as constitutional, CVD
representatives have published several commentaries about the
disturbing nature of the problem and how it is best addressed by
adopting full representation voting methods. Others suggesting that
full representation should be on the table in the wake of the Vieth
ruling include Richard Hasen, co-editor of Election Law Journal and
blogger (electionlawblog.org), who wrote in Roll Call on May 3, 2004
that "States might move to more creative methods of choosing members of
state legislatures such as through the use of cumulative voting."

Below
is a letter by CVD's Rob Richie that was published on May 5 in the
Washington Post, followed by an excerpt from a lengthy commentary by
Richie and CVD chairman John Anderson that appeared in the May 17 Legal
Times.

Fred
Hiatt is quite right to finger redistricting as a major problem with
our democracy -- it's simply wrong to allow elected officials to help
their friends and hurt their enemies ["Time to Draw the Line," op-ed,
May 3]. But with nonpartisan redistricting, the number of competitive
districts around the nation would probably increase from one in 10
seats to perhaps one in six -- doing little to address the polarized
nature of policymaking on Capitol Hill and under- representation of
women and minorities.

It's time to modify
winner-take-all elections, as nearly all other enduring democracies
have. One American example comes from Illinois, where from 1870 to 1980
candidates for the state House of Representatives ran in three-seat
districts, as is done in most of Maryland. A full-representation voting
method was used that lowered the victory threshold for candidates from
50 to 25 percent.

The Illinois system didn't
threaten the two-party system, but it broadened representation within
the parties and promoted more bipartisan policy. It also gave most
voters better choices and fairer representation, and it boosted
representation of women and African Americans.

It
would take only a statute to enact the Illinois system of multi-seat
districts for electing the U.S. House members and most state
legislators. Without it most voters are doomed to electoral irrelevance
no matter how we draw district lines.

*************

"A Better Way to Vote" (excerpt) Legal Times, May 17, 2004, By John B. Anderson and Rob Richie

The
Supreme Court's decision last month in Vieth v. Jubilirer to uphold
Pennsylvania's congressional redistricting plan demands that we
confront an uncomfortable fact: We must either change our
winner-take-all electoral system or accept the degradation of
democracy…

Breyer in his dissent most directly
addresses winner-take-all elections and "why the Constitution does not
insist that the membership of legislatures better reflect different
groups of voters." He states that the Constitution demands "a method
for transforming the will of the majority into effective government."
But his subsequent discussion reflects a primitive understanding of
comparative electoral systems, suggesting that the only alternative to
single-party-majority governments, elected by single-member districts,
is coalition-ridden, multiparty governments like those of Italy and
Israel. In fact, there are other viable alternatives.

Scalia's
use of the word "radical" and Breyer's specter of coalition- ridden
Italy point to an underlying problem: Rather than interpreting the
Constitution, the justices are acting as political scientists, and
rather poor ones at that, in leaving undisturbed the status quo of
single-member districts.

Far-from-radical,
full-representation voting methods have a lengthy history in the United
States. In fact, Justice Clarence Thomas discussed them quite cogently
in Holder v. Hall (1994), noting that "from the earliest days of the
Republic, multimember districts were a common feature of our political
systems." Non-winner-take-all voting methods used here (in a growing
number of cities) and in some other nations have led to largely
two-party systems, yet still resolve nearly all political
gerrymandering concerns -- and, importantly, all the conflicts the
Court has faced in trying to ensure that racial minorities can elect
candidates of their choice.

If
non-winner-take-all systems would constitute no "radical" change, there
is simply no constitutional reason to cling to single- member
districts. Indeed, Illinois shows how alternatives to winner- take-all
elections can enhance our political traditions rather than
fundamentally alter them.

From 1870 to 1980,
the Illinois lower house had three-seat constituencies elected by
cumulative voting. Voters had three votes each, which they could give
to one candidate or spread among a few. The majority party usually won
two seats, often with two candidates reflecting different elements
within the party. The third seat usually was won by another party with
support from about a quarter of the voters.

After
the system was replaced in 1980 (due to a citizen initiative that
sharply reduced the number of representatives), the Illinois
legislature became much more polarized. Today most longtime leaders in
both parties support the return of multi-seat districts, as evidenced
by the 2001 recommendation of a bipartisan commission led by former
Republican Gov. Jim Edgar and former Democratic Rep. Abner Mikva. The
commission argued that multi-seat districts would lead to greater
cooperation between the parties and fairer representation across the
state.

The Illinois system's one downside --
the fact that parties often nominated only two candidates to avoid
splitting the vote -- could be addressed by adopting the choice voting
method used in Ireland. That system lets voters indicate their first,
second, and third choices, so that voters whose first choice doesn't
win a seat can still help elect their second or third choice. Also, to
ensure greater accuracy of representation statewide, a few "add-on"
seats could be awarded to underrepresented parties, as recently
proposed in the United Kingdom.

Many students
of American democracy and nearly every major newspaper, from The New
York Times to The Wall Street Journal, warn that our democracy is in
crisis because there is so little competition and accountability in
congressional elections. But without challenging the dogma of
winner-take-all districts, any reforms will fall short of addressing
the real crisis. To confront the political realities of the 21st
century and rebuild a vibrant, accountable representative democracy, we
must turn to American systems of full representation.

*
Voting rights amendment gathers support: HJR 28, Rep. Jesse Jackson
Jr.'s right-to-vote amendment, now has 35 co-sponsors. See http://archive.fairvote.org/righttovote/index.htm.
Meanwhile, the proposed Iraqi constitution would give its citizens the
right to vote, as indeed is the case in most nations. Article 20 reads
"Every Iraqi who fulfills the conditions stipulated in the electoral
law has the right to stand for election and cast his ballot secretly in
free, open, fair, competitive, and periodic elections."

*
An integrated U.S. Senate: Colorado's Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell's
announcement that he would retire from the U.S. Senate this year
presents the possibility that the 49 U.S. states on the continent of
North America will not have any people of color representing them in
the U.S. Senate. Currently the Senate has 97 whites, two Asian
Americans from Hawaii and Campbell, who is a Native American. Hopes for
a more integrated Senate likely rest on strong U.S. Senate candidates
who are racial minorities running this year in Colorado (Latino),
Florida (Latino) and Illinois (African American).

*
Notable books: Hendrik Hertzberg, the New Yorker magazine's elegant
writer who has served on our board of directors since 1995, will have a
book collection coming out in June called "Politics: Observations and
Arguments, 1966-2004" (Penguin Books). It will include some of Rick's
best writing in favor of full representation and instant runoff voting.
Last month, Open Debates executive director George Farah's book "No
Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the
Presidential Debates" (Seven Stories Press) was released – it
highlights the need for a true citizens' commission to run the
presidential debates.

##

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The
Center for Voting and Democracy is a non-profit organization based in
Washington D.C. It is headed by former Congressman and presidential
candidate John B. Anderson. We are devoted to increasing public
understanding of American politics and how to reform its rules to
provide better choices and fairer representation. Our website (www.fairvote.org) has information on voting methods, redistricting and voter turnout.